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Rwanda Supreme Court will not hear DGPR’s Lawsuit

Posted 5 January, 2015

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Rwanda’s Supreme Court has issued a decision stating that it will not hear DGPR’s lawsuit on the non-respect of French Language, which was filed on 8th December 2014.

The Supreme Court decision states that, the case could not be accepted because the evidences submitted were not in form of laws or international conventions violated, but administrative decisions/actions, which could be heard by another competent court.

DGPR believed that the constitutional court had the competence to rule on this case, since, the party has submitted evidences in form of tangible acts done by different Government Institutions violating Article 5 of the Constitution.

The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda will therefore, take this case to the High Court in Kigali.

DGPR believes that the non-respect of article 5 of the constitution negatively affects many educated Rwandans as it denies them a chance of equal treatment as citizens and thus makes them unable to achieve their legal rights as stipulated in Article 16 of the Rwandan Constitution, which states that: ‘All human beings are equal before the law. They shall enjoy, without any discrimination, equal protection of the Law’.

Article 5 of the Rwandan constitution stipulates that Rwanda uses three official languages: Kinyarwanda, French and English, however, many Government institutions such as the National Bank of Rwanda, Rwanda Revenue Authority, National ID Project and many others, have opted to either use English alone or with Kinyarwanda, and deliberately left out French. DGPR finds this a hindrance to the national unity and reconciliation process.